


there's things i wanna say to you (but i'll just let you live)

by jfw858



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Character Death, Heavy Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Only a few years though, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, its not bad though, just saying, minor descriptions of violence/injuries?, the fic is literally about peoples last words idk what to tell you sorry lol, theres no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jfw858/pseuds/jfw858
Summary: In a world where the last words your soulmate will ever speak to you are tattooed on each person’s wrist, Mark is terrified at the realization that he’s falling in love with someone who has already found—and lost—theirs.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 90





	there's things i wanna say to you (but i'll just let you live)

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone don't forget to stream kick it! :)
> 
> Credits to whoever came up with this spin on the soulmate AU, because it sure as hell wasn’t me!
> 
> Also, fun drinking game idea: take a shot every time you read the word “soulmate” lmao
> 
> (oh and title from cinnamon girl by lana del rey)
> 
> update: here is the link to the chinese translation  
> done by the lovely user JX_17, i can't thank them enough!

These are Donghyuck’s first words to Mark Lee: “So, what’s your deal? You’re obsessed with the whole ‘soulmates’ thing or something, right?

Mark is taken aback, having prepared for nearly every situation other than this. He manages a vague, half-affirmation in response, voice sounding strangled even to his own ears.

Next to him, their friends Jaemin and Jeno wear equal expressions of disbelief.

Jaemin is the first to recover, cheerfully announcing, “Well, that was weird. Mark, this is Donghyuck. Donghyuck, Mark. Although you probably knew that already, considering how much I talk about you guys to each other.”

Jeno then reminds Jaemin of exactly how often he’s insisted that Mark and Donghyuck should meet, laughing lightly to ease some of the tension.

And with that, they slip—somewhat uneasily—into a more comfortable conversation about mutual friends and who knows someone who’s become semi-famous, steering clear of the topic of soulmates.

Later on, when they are left alone upon Jaemin and Jeno’s belated realization that their cat has an appointment at the vet, Donghyuck and Mark sit in awkward silence, still elbow to elbow at a four person table.

Knowing there was no way to relieve the tension without addressing the elephant in the room, Mark breaks the silence, moving to sit across from Donghyuck and asking how he knew about Mark’s ‘soulmate thing.’

He carefully refrains from using the word ‘obsession,’ which Donghyuck notices but doesn’t comment on.

“Nobody told me,” Donghyuck shrugs. “They think it’ll be too hard to hear, all that soulmate talk. I mean, they mean well, and for the most part they’re right, but I’m not stupid. I can’t pretend soulmates don’t exist just because I lost mine. Which I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about,” he says, giving Mark a pointed look.

This time, it’s Mark’s turn to fake obliviousness.

“Besides, I get a constant reminder every time I look at my wrist anyway.”

Mark doesn’t miss the bitterness lacing his tone.

And although there’s a slightly stifling pause after Donghyuck says this, Mark was right about needing to address the tension in order to break the ice. For the conversation flows naturally afterward, and three more hours practically fly by before they’re exchanging numbers on the way out of the cafe.

Mark sees multiple texts from Jaemin upon his return home: first, an apology for leaving them so abruptly, and another for the awkwardness of the first encounter. _I don’t blame you if you don’t want to meet him again_ , he has written.

Mark’s eyes skip to the last text.

_I still think you guys could be really good friends though._

To Mark’s surprise, he finds that he agrees.

* * *

“He’s had his heart broken,” Jaemin says, the edge in his voice hinting at his underlying message.

_He lost his soulmate._

Mark learned a long time ago to recognize love in all of its many forms, and while Jaemin’s steely gaze differs tremendously from the light he seems to radiate when he’s near Jeno, there is no question that Jaemin loves Donghyuck all the same.

It seems as though everyone loves Donghyuck this way: fiercely, with no room for uncertainty or faltering loyalty. Yet there is also a certain stillness to it, like they are all afraid to scare him away by loving too openly.

Mark doesn’t understand it, not until Jaemin explains that Donghyuck would allow no one to tell him they love him.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Exactly what I said. We never say ‘I love you.’ He wouldn’t allow it, would cut us off every time we almost slipped up. It’s because he was afraid…” Jaemin gestures vaguely to his wrist. “...you know. He was afraid it’d be the last time he heard it.”

“Oh.” Pause. “But you guys aren’t his soulmate?”

“Well, maybe it’s because he’s cynical? Because he was paranoid about all the possibilities? I don’t know, Mark. All I know is that he wouldn’t let us say it, not to mention his soulmate.”

Jaemin laughs sardonically. “Do you know how many other languages I’ve learned how to say ‘I love you’ in? Thirteen, Mark. Thirteen. And after Ren—his soulmate passed away, it felt wrong to start saying it, somehow.”

Mark is speechless, not knowing how to react. He’s never heard of anyone doing anything like it.

“That’s not the point, though.” Jaemin furrows his eyebrows. “Look, I’m only telling you this so that you won’t ask about it, or mention soulmates, or even think about soulmates—because I know if I don’t warn you there’s no way you won’t ask about his. Like I said, it’s a touchy subject, so just...don’t bring it up, please? Not tomorrow, at least.”

Mark nods, still confused but not wanting to push it.

“Good.” Jaemin sighs, and smiles toothily. “I’ve hyped you up way too much to let something like this fuck up your chances of being best friends.”

Much later, Mark will replay the conversation over and over again, rolling the words around in his mind until it registers that they were as much a warning to Mark as they were a courtesy to Donghyuck.

But by then, it is too late—for Mark has already begun to love Donghyuck, so much it’s nearly unbearable.

He has dug his own grave, and he can do nothing but lie in it.

So lie he does: day after day, watching Donghyuck open up to him as they grow closer, Mark shoves his feelings down. Pretends he wants nothing other than friendship as he proceeds to toss and turn restlessly at night, recalling stories he’d read about friends who had a feeling but never said anything for fear of ruining lives on a suspicion.

It’s nights like these that Mark will wish he had followed Jaemin’s advice and stayed quiet about the elephant in the room the first time they met, just let things be awkward. Then Donghyuck would have just become another acquaintance that he had no interest in seeing again.

Then he’d still be searching for his soulmate: his _actual_ soulmate, instead of pining hopelessly after a boy who’s already found his.

 _But then,_ his brain supplies, _you never would have known Donghyuck._

Mark can’t argue with that logic.

* * *

There is no guarantee you’ll meet your soulmate within your lifetime.

There is no guarantee that the person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life with is truly your soulmate—at least not until the very end.

Some people have multiple soulmates at once. Some go their whole lives searching before realizing, too late, that their best friend was their soulmate all along. Some couples grow old together only to discover on their deathbeds that they were never meant to be. Others abandoned the idea of soulmates altogether, cursed the words on their wrists, tattooed new designs to cover the black letters.

The black letters that are the only constant. Inked onto one’s right wrist, they are permanent, growing in size as children grow into adults.

Mark has read stories about people who tried to carve the tattoos out of their skin only for the tattoo to be there when their mangled wrists healed.

The only one hundred percent effective way to remove them was to cut off your hand at the wrist.

But truthfully, there isn’t any point to that, because by then the words are burned in your mind anyway. And that, Mark thought, was a different kind of torture.

Mark knows all of this, and more, because he has dreamed of meeting his soulmate for as long as he can remember, perhaps as long as he’s known they exist. He’s read almost every book on the subject, pored over every website and archive. He knows it’s horribly cliché, to wait all your life for one person. Pathetic, even.

But Mark can’t help wanting more than mediocre dates with mediocre people and various apps claiming they’ll match you with the one as long as you input your credit card information.

Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t have friends. He has Jaemin, and Jeno, and on occasion he plays basketball with Johnny and Jaehyun from two apartments down.

So Mark turns down blind date after blind date, refuses to download any kind of dating app; chooses instead to sit around and simply wait for true love to fall right into his lap.

It continues like this until Jaemin, exasperated, points out that the chances of meeting your soulmate increase the more people you meet.

What Jaemin actually says is “Mark, there’s no way you’ll ever meet your soulmate if you’re not meeting _anyone at all_.”

Regardless, it is for this reason and this reason only that Mark agrees to start expanding his circle.

* * *

Mark always believed that the day he finally, truly, fell in love, it would be something magical. Music playing in the background, everything else falling away, the whole nine yards.

In actuality, the instant it registers that Mark is in love with Donghyuck, he runs. Runs away, and just barely stops himself from emptying his stomach into the bushes outside Donghyuck’s apartment downtown.

They are sitting in Donghyuck’s bedroom, scrolling through the newly released pictures of celebrities arriving at the Met Gala and making fun of their ridiculous outfits while some Spiderman movie plays in the background. Donghyuck leans over to show Mark a particularly horrendous headdress someone is wearing, freshly washed hair tickling Mark’s neck.

The next time Mark inhales, he smells the scent of his coconut shampoo, getting so distracted he nearly misses what Donghyuck says next.

“The poor girl,” he comments, “That doesn’t look like it’d be too comfortable.”

It is a gross understatement, considering the massive arrangement of diamonds the woman is wearing atop her head must have weighed at least twenty pounds, so for some reason the casual way Donghyuck says this is extremely funny to him.

Mark is in the middle of laughing disproportionately hard when it hits him in a moment of startling clarity: he loves Donghyuck.

He is in love with Donghyuck.

The price of this clarity is a heavy one: within the next second Mark feels the pasta he and Donghyuck cooked for dinner rising up into his throat and threatening to make an ugly appearance on Donghyuck’s ridiculously soft rug.

He mumbles some incoherent and no doubt confusing excuse before racing out of the apartment, desperate for the sharp bite of fresh air.

Once he no longer feels in immediate danger of dry heaving onto the nearest surface, Mark picks himself up off the concrete and begins to make his way home, knees still wobbling slightly.

He reminds himself, again, that Donghyuck has already found his soulmate, and although they aren’t around anymore, it doesn’t mean that Donghyuck is available. In fact, it practically guarantees that Donghyuck will never be with Mark, never love him in the way Mark wants so badly for him to.

It isn’t until he’s unlocking the front door of his apartment that he understands why he feels guilty: by falling in love with Donghyuck knowing that he’s already found his soulmate, Mark senses that he is disrespecting the person Donghyuck truly loves.

The understanding makes his stomach turn once more, but Mark knows that even the guilt won’t be able to change the way he feels.

He enters his apartment and makes a beeline for his laptop, rapid-fire typing “double soulmates” into the search bar and scanning the millions of results.

Belatedly, he observes that this is the first time he’s searched for anything soulmate-related in a long while.

Most of the results talk about polyamorous soulmates, who are born with two lines of text on their wrist. So Mark digs deeper, ignoring the buzzing of his phone. Soon enough, he finds a lone thread on a forum describing how the user’s soulmate had already lost their other soulmate when they met.

Skimming the story, Mark felt his heart begin to race. Against his better judgement, he feels tiny petals of hope beginning to unfurl in his chest.

But just as quickly as they blossom, they are crushed by a sentence: _He told me he always thought the two lines meant that he would have two soulmates at once, not separately._

There it was, clear as day. If Donghyuck had two soulmates, he’d still have two lines on his wrist. Mark wasn’t his soulmate.

He can’t say he’s all that surprised. Donghyuck was too good to be true, anyway.

Dejected and looking for a distraction, Mark picks up his phone to see several texts and a missed call from Donghyuck.

It’s not the kind of distraction he was looking for, and it’s definitely not the kind of distraction that would be healthy, but when Donghyuck calls him again, Mark picks up.

Again and again, he picks up the phone.

Mark learns things. He learns that Donghyuck hates pineapple on pizza with an unrivaled vehemence. He learns that Donghyuck is the eldest of three siblings that he spoils to no end. He learns of how Donghyuck forced himself to feel nothing for years because he couldn’t handle feeling anything at all.

Donghyuck learns things too.

Generally, there are two types of people: those who keep their wrists hidden, and those who don’t. The latter are driven by determination to beat the system, the former driven by fear.

It’s become somewhat of an industry, companies designing increasingly aesthetic bracelets and patches to hide the words for anyone who wishes to.

Donghyuck is one of the latter, never one to cover up his words with a pretty bracelet. He refused to let the words control him, even if he knew deep down that in the end, it didn’t make a difference—the words control everyone.

Donghyuck has no clue what words are inked onto Mark Lee’s wrist, because he is one of the former, hoping to somehow protect himself from heartbreak.

However, as futile as Donghyuck finds it, he can’t deny that the slim black band Mark wears is beautiful in its own haunting way.

* * *

“I’m kind of worried about him,” Jeno says, holding his warm coffee cup with both hands.

Jaemin hums in agreement, eyes focused on the rain falling outside. “He loves too much,” he murmurs.

Jeno wants to reach across the table and run his fingers along Jaemin’s cheek, smooth out the crease between his eyebrows, but his hands are still freezing from their brief walk to the cafe.

He would have put them in his pockets, but he was holding the umbrella in one hand and Jaemin’s hand in the other, so it couldn’t have been helped.

On the television screen above them, a grim looking anchor speaks of fault lines and shock waves. The warm smell of coffee wraps around them, a striking contrast to the raindrops sliding like tears down the large windows.

Not even the steady sound of rain and buzz of other people’s conversations does much to comfort the apprehensive feeling in Jeno’s chest.

Absentmindedly, he glances down at the phrases inked on both of his wrists. On the left, _“Hey, I’m lost.”_ Jaemin’s first words to him, which he’d immediately followed up with, “Could you tell me how to get to your heart?”

Jeno had spluttered, speechless, for several moments as Jaemin grinned at him with that wide smile Jeno so quickly fell head over heels for.

Tattooed on Jaemin’s left wrist are the words, _“Excuse me?”_

Jeno still gets embarrassed when he thinks about how that was the best response he could come up with, but what’s done is done.

It wasn’t uncommon for couples to get the first thing their soulmate had said to them, or the date they met, or even a nickname, tattooed on their other wrist when they felt certain they had met their other half.

It served both as a commitment to each other, and a signal to everyone else that they were no longer looking. Somehow, there was something about seeing a tattoo on someone’s left wrist that was even more effective in dissuading unwanted flirtation than a wedding ring.

It had never really been a question, whether Jaemin was Jeno’s soulmate or not. At dinner on their six month anniversary, Jeno had shown Jaemin the words written on his right wrist: _“I’ll meet you in the next life, angel.”_

Jaemin had simply leaned back in his seat with a cheeky “ohoho” before declaring decisively, “that sounds like something I would say.”

And that was that. They were soulmates, and Jeno had never questioned it since.

Now, Jaemin speaks up again. “They’re so good for each other, though.”

Jeno nods. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Hyuck this happy. Have you noticed he’s actually started asking us to hang out? We used to have to drag him out of bed.”

Jaemin smiles. And then they both sigh, because Donghyuck being happy also means Mark, inevitably, being heartbroken.

“He’s just so _loud_ about it,” Jaemin whines, ever the complainer. “I think everyone on Earth but him knows he’s in love with Donghyuck.”

“Not Donghyuck.”

“ _Especially_ Donghyuck. He notices, there’s no way he doesn’t. He just doesn’t understand what it means.”

“How can he? He’s never been around Mark when Mark isn’t around him.” Jeno cocks his head. “Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. Mark is just this different person around him. It’s like...he’s brighter or something.”

“Donghyuck, too. They’re both just better around each other.”

Neither of them have anything to say after that. They sit and sip for a minute, caught up in the same thoughts. Then Jeno speaks up uncertainly.

“If I weren’t absolutely sure Donghyuck has already met his soulmate, I’d think…” he trails off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

But as always, Jaemin understands exactly what Jeno is trying to say. He reaches across the table to rest a reassuring hand on Jeno’s own.

“I know. Me too.”

* * *

Falling in love with Donghyuck is easy. Surprisingly so, although it shouldn’t be.

It’s also quiet. So quiet that Mark doesn’t notice it happening at all.

Where Mark draws lines, Donghyuck crosses them. And where Donghyuck builds walls, Mark finds the one loose brick that causes the whole thing to collapse.

They love in long conversations, late night walks, and double dates with Jaemin and Jeno that they all refuse to acknowledge are double dates. Countless nights are spent cooking together in Donghyuck’s apartment as he tries, and fails, to teach Mark how to cook.

Once, Donghyuck takes Mark to his favorite museum downtown, where there is a temporary exhibit on Impressionism, and Mark listens to him talk about paintings for a solid two hours. He doesn’t mind, content with just watching the way Donghyuck’s eyes light up talking about Monet and Cézanne and a bunch of other famous artists whose names he only vaguely recognizes.

The next week, armed with paint and canvases from the nearest craft store, Mark surprises Donghyuck at his apartment. They spend the evening following Bob Ross tutorials on Youtube, doing a horrible job and pausing only to eat the takeout Mark had been smart enough to order ahead of time.

Donghyuck also manages to convince Mark to play guitar at the local coffee shop’s open mic night, telling so many of their friends in advance that Mark nearly bails out at the last minute upon seeing the turnout. He doesn’t though, and he plays wonderfully, singing a cover to warm up before performing an original song that gets the loudest applause of the night.

If Jaemin and Jeno notice the way Donghyuck stares at the boy onstage with a universe’s worth of tenderness in his eyes, they don’t say a word.

Sometimes Donghyuck will tell him things about his soulmate and Mark will feel his heart splinter, just a little bit. He knows it’s impossible, and yet whenever Donghyuck walks away from him Mark swears he can feel a tugging in his chest, as if the strings of fate are trying to keep him as close as possible.

Another time, when he’s sleeping over and they’re laying side by side in the dark, Donghyuck confesses how much it crushed him to realize that although he did everything he could to stop it, preventing his soulmate from saying ‘I love you’ was pointless in the end.

Donghyuck confesses that he feels foolish, because he had, naively, believed it when others told him they were good words to have, that they implied a long and happy life.

He confesses that despite his dramatics about not letting his friends say ‘I love you’ either, he hadn’t doubted for a second that he’d committed to the wrong person.

This one hurts the most, although Mark pretends it doesn’t.

But Mark is hopeful that everything will work out. Because despite everything, he is a romantic through and through. He believes in the power of the universe, in its ability to guide the right people to the people right for them.

Especially if they’re looking hard enough, as Mark is.

The rational side of him knows that Donghyuck can’t possibly be his soulmate after already losing his own, so Mark pushes his crush on the sun-kissed boy to the back of his mind, decides that he will have to be okay with friendship.

And for a while, he is.

* * *

Blood. There is so much blood. Dark, black, thick. It surrounds him, seeps into the edges of his vision and makes bile climb up into his throat.

Mark is at a loss. He hears the desperate screams of people around him, their cries for help. He hears the distant sound of sirens, shrill and insistent, but somehow he knows they are not ringing for Donghyuck.

Donghyuck, whose blood is spreading, bound to leave a stain on the concrete sidewalk. Donghyuck, who is growing paler by the second.

Donghyuck, who looks up at him with glassy eyes and asks, finally, “Mark, what’s written on your wrist?”

Mark has seen this happen hundreds of times, read about it on blogs and forums into the early hours of the morning.

Used _to read about_ , he thinks with a certain detachment.

Because Mark’s insatiable need to know everything about the soulmate bond had disappeared the moment he met Donghyuck.

But he remembers everything he’s read, including multiple accounts of how people’s last words were spoken. One occurrence in particular: On the brink of death, a soulmate had wondered what her last words were fated to be. And after being told, she’d repeated those very words with something close to wonder, unknowingly taking her final breath as she said them.

So Mark lies. He says the first thing that comes to his mind—the thing that almost always means happy endings for the people who have them written—because Donghyuck is his soulmate.

“Goodnight,” he whispers. “It says goodnight.”

Mark lies, because Donghyuck is his soulmate, and Mark does not want him to die.

He doesn’t know how, but Mark knows this with an absolute certainty he’s never had about anything before.

“You’re lying,” Donghyuck murmured, and Mark can’t help but look at him in surprise, watching Donghyuck’s eyes clear and focus on him for the first time since Mark found him.

“There’s no way those are my last words.”

Although some part of him has known for a while, it still shocks him to hear Donghyuck say it, admit that they are soulmates.

“You know.”

“I’ve had my suspicions.”

Relief. Dread. Longing. Mark feels all of this and more, but overpowering everything is a terror so complete it washes everything else to pieces. Because if what both he and Donghyuck believe is true, it means that Mark might just lose the love of his life before he’s even taken him out on a proper date.

“You love me?”

“And to think I thought I was being too obvious.” Donghyuck laughs, and then coughs, a wheezing cough that causes his whole body to tremble. Blood appears at the corner of his lips. Mark averts his eyes and pretends not to notice, feeling gutted.

He can hardly believe that Donghyuck has fallen in love just as he has. Donghyuck, ever so perceptive, is quick to notice his doubt.

“Mark Lee, you are my soulmate. And I love you.”

Now, after the denial of his feelings for months, the words grate against something inside Mark. He begins to open his mouth: whether to contradict Donghyuck, make a confession of his own, or simply cry, he’ll never know. Because Donghyuck steamrolls on, seeming to use up the last of his strength.

“I would have let you say it, you know. ‘I love you.’ Even knowing that anytime could have been the last. But for you, I would have made an exception.” Donghyuck pauses, both to catch his breath and to collect his thoughts.

“I would have liked to hear him say it more than once. More than just that last time. I should have let him say it.”

Seeing Donghyuck’s eyes glaze over, Mark understands he is talking about his other soulmate, the one whose name he has never heard spoken out loud.

He won’t learn the name of Donghyuck’s other soulmate—Renjun—until he asks Jeno and Jaemin months later, needing to know this one last, vital, thing about him.

But then Donghyuck’s eyes focus on Mark again, laser sharp and pleading.

“I know you love me, Mark. I know we’re soulmates. We both know what’s written on my wrist, and what that means if you say it.” Donghyuck takes a long, rattling breath. “But, please, will you? Say it? For me?”

The air leaves Mark’s lungs.

_For me?_

The words inked across his wrist.

The question that has haunted him his whole life.

He’d imagined the happier possibilities: perhaps they’d be spoken by a voice frail with age as Mark handed his soulmate flowers at the end of their long, happy, life together. Or whispered as Mark held hands with his soulmate on their deathbed, promising them to be happy.

Yet, Mark could never shake the nagging feeling that things wouldn’t end well for his soulmate, maybe precisely because the words were phrased as a question. It felt far too open ended, ominous.

Mark didn’t miss the irony in the way he had spent years searching for his soulmate only to push him away once he’d found him. He even lied about the words written on his wrist in a last ditch effort to, what? Save Donghyuck’s life? Prove once and for all that the boy Mark loved with every fiber of his being wasn’t his real soulmate?

Though it didn’t really matter why Mark had lied, because in the end, his soulmate said his words anyway.

Donghyuck said his words anyway.

Mark was only frozen for a few seconds, but already Donghyuck’s eyes had begun to flutter shut, breathing slowing down until Mark can no longer discern the rise and fall of his chest.

“Donghyuck,” Mark cries, grabbing the other boy’s hand. “Donghyuck, please, look at me,” he begs. He doesn’t ask him to speak, understanding with the same certainty as before that Donghyuck will never speak again.

Donghyuck stirs slightly, eyes managing to meet Mark’s a final time.

“I love you.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes, smiles. And Mark knows he’s gone, watches him die, sees the life leave his body, but he repeats it over and over, hoping that somehow Donghyuck’s ears will pick up on it, because he needs Donghyuck to hear how much Mark loves him more than once.

It feels too cruel otherwise.

Dimly, Mark registers that the air probably should have returned to his lungs by now. He still can’t breathe. Maybe it’s the dust from the rubble around him, but he gets the feeling that he won’t be able to catch his breath for a long, long, time.

It is the realization that Donghyuck must have felt the exact same searing emptiness for years that breaks him—finally, the dam breaks and Mark begins to cry.

His sobs, his anguish, fit in naturally with the hysteria of the people around him as he succumbs entirely to his grief. The grief that is no doubt relishing in the chance to drain him of everything.

The grief that will make a mockery of the romantic he once was, leave him drifting: a husk without direction or purpose.

It isn’t until a tearful Jaemin tells him how much Mark reminds him of Donghyuck when he lost his first soulmate that Mark remembers.

Donghyuck, during one of their many late-night conversations, had told Mark of his struggle to take steps forward when it always felt like he was moving backward, how he had learned to lean on his friends and family, drawn incentive from their constant support.

Donghyuck had described, in perfect detail, the slow way he had pieced himself back together again.

It is only following Donghyuck’s unintentional advice that Mark begins to do the same.

* * *

Mark and Donghyuck are on their way to the convenience store to buy ice cream.

The sun is shining. Donghyuck is in the middle of a sentence complaining about the heat when there is a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

For eighteen terrifying seconds, the ground bounces violently up and down beneath them.

Losing his balance, Mark falls to his knees, scraping them on the sidewalk. Cracks open up in the street, destroying the freshly painted lines. He hears the crash of something nearby, the sizzle of electrical wires from telephone poles pitching over, but he can’t investigate, can’t do anything but scramble for purchase on the dirty pavement and search wildly for Donghyuck, who has disappeared from beside him.

And then, just like that, it’s over.

The ground returns to normal and Mark can finally rise, albeit shakily, to his feet.

For a moment, all he can hear is the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

And then the moment passes, and suddenly Mark is aware of every sound: every shingle shattering upon its delayed fall from the rooftop, every cry for help, every blaring car alarm.

Some of the buildings have collapsed. In the distance, a dark plume of smoke darkens the afternoon sky, the first fire of many that will sweep the city for days.

Turning his head rapidly from side to side, Mark begins scanning the rubble for any sign of Donghyuck. When he finally sees him, Donghyuck is in the action of using one arm to push uselessly at the block of concrete crushing his broken ribs.

His other arm, severed by a piece of metal Mark sees no obvious explanation for, lies several feet away.

The sight crowds all thoughts from Mark’s mind, until there is nothing but an overpowering memory of how he had to convince Donghyuck to come with him, how he’d promised the younger that the ice cream would be well worth the walk through the sweltering heat.

Later, when Mark discovers that Donghyuck’s apartment building survived the earthquake, his insistence on ice cream will become his greatest regret.

Currently, the world is tilting again at Mark’s feet.

Then, something clicks. An epiphany takes place.

He runs to Donghyuck.

* * *

Donghyuck had said the words “I love you” countless times in his twenty-three years. But outside of family, Donghyuck only heard the words twice.

Once, they were whispered by his soulmate as Donghyuck held his hand and heard the heart monitor beside his hospital bed slow until it flatlined. Donghyuck had flinched at the sound before breaking into a flood of tears. Something in his heart had ruptured at the sound, and for years Donghyuck thought he would feel broken for the rest of his life.

Enter Mark: clumsy, kind, selfless Mark.

Donghyuck, believing he had nothing to lose, had let his guard down, allowed Mark to trickle into every corner of his life. Too distracted by how nice it was to be with other people, how _normal_ it felt, Donghyuck failed to notice that Mark was steadily stitching the pieces of his shattered heart back together.

The second time, they were spoken desperately, and yet with a certain kind of resignation, as his soulmate held his hand and watched Donghyuck take his final, shuddering, breath.

Donghyuck couldn’t tell which had hurt more.

The universe wasn’t perfect. It tore people apart in its effort to bring them together. It brought about more tragedies than fairytale endings. It made it nearly impossible to ever be sure someone was actually meant for you.

Donghyuck knew this better than anyone. Considering all the extra hurdles he and Mark were forced to cross in order to reach each other, the young age at which he had lost Renjun, he probably should have been bitter, but he felt strangely peaceful. All he knew was that having his soulmates, for however long or short it had been, was worth it.

Because the universe taught people to love—showed them a glimpse of true happiness. Sometimes more than a glimpse. And despite the risk, people continued to fall in love, start families, search for their soulmates.

Over time, people built their own happiness, with or without the universe’s help.

Even if his soulmates had only told Donghyuck they loved him once, Donghyuck had felt it countless times. He had felt it in the way Renjun had rolled his eyes and smiled patiently, adoringly, each time Donghyuck put a finger over his lips so he wouldn’t say the three words that terrified him to no end. He had felt it in the way Mark looked at him when he thought Donghyuck wasn’t paying attention, all the universe’s stars glittering in his gaze.

And he had felt it with his oldest friends: Jaemin, Jeno, Jisung and Chenle from his hometown, all the others. The people who had helped him begin to recover after the loss of Renjun, and reassured him later that he wasn’t betraying Renjun by healing, little by little, with Mark.

It hadn’t been spoken, but Donghyuck had known without a doubt how much he was loved.

How much his soulmates had loved him.

So perhaps the universe was onto something after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I was considering titling this “you are someone’s dream person” based on mark’s cheer up bracelet but i thought it sounded too optimistic considering how this fic went haha
> 
> But to be honest I tried SO hard to make this entirely serious but some of the lines still sound cheeky to me, idk
> 
> Also I know I write literally nothing other than markhyuck (though i may or may not have a markmin fic in the works but honestly who knows if i’ll ever finish it lmfao) but can we agree that Renhyuck dynamics are *chefs kiss* 
> 
> this is such an experimental fic for me i’ve never really written anything with a non linear narrative (or in present tense now that i think about it) so pls let me know what you think in the comments or talk to me on [ twitter! ](%E2%80%9Dtwitter.com/urlocalnctzen%E2%80%9D)
> 
> ps: i know things are kinda crazy in the world rn so please stay safe out there everyone!!
> 
> -K


End file.
